


Through storms, and all

by colouring



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 17:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12040842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colouring/pseuds/colouring
Summary: Mingyu wrestles with something that's been on his mind for about a week now. Minghao is also ruminating over what seems like a different matter but is far more alike to Mingyu's matter than he thinks.





	Through storms, and all

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> My favourite booboo banane, happy birthday my lovely! Sorry this is so rushed and most likely ridden with errors and inconsistencies fnisfnwiefniwe but I hope you like it! You're such a wonderful presence in my life and i'm so so so sos os glad I met you and got close to you and also jubilee and just. i really love you annie and all you r watering and all our watering on our fave jube and just your talent and kindness and sweetness!!!!!!!! i hope college is going well for you <3 <3 <3

The question is always there. Hanging, much like the white sheets billowing in the backyard, their fresh cotton smell a sharp contrast to the bitter bite of Minghao’s morning coffee. It isn’t an urgent question, nor is it a question whose answer lends a hand to fate, theirs or anyone’s. Mingyu ruminates over it anyway, spends the whole of last week in a state of constant hypervigilance if they so much skirt around the topic. Wonwoo, his best childhood friend, claimed Mingyu’s behaviour ‘gave him the creeps’. And when Mingyu, in a mistaken act of assuming Wonwoo’s observation skills as empathy, confessed what was bothering him, Wonwoo simply laughed, head thrown back, shoulder shaking and all. It was hard to hide whatever disappointment Mingyu felt then. He huffed away before he could hear the half-hearted apology Wonwoo shouted after him.

In retrospect however, Wonwoo is probably right, like he always is. Mingyu is as straightforward as an arrow, the type to keep his bushes trimmed so he can see everything around it. If he had something to say, it would be out of his mouth before his brain can filter it, which hasn’t always landed him in the best of situations. One of those situations put him in a three-month-long war with Minghao— he can’t even recall what it was about, but he knows it was something utterly pitiable, and that’s probably why his brain’s blocked out the memory completely.

  
Not even his confession to Minghao had rendered him this frazzled. The night before, Wonwoo had been watching ‘The Secret Life of Four Year Olds’ for a behavioural psychology project, and Mingyu, bored out of his mind from the engineering mathematics assignment he’s doing, had taken a quick peek to see what all the fuss was about. Before long, Wonwoo was fast asleep and Mingyu was biting his blanket, screaming at Thomas to start being honest with himself and stop tormenting Jaylah like this! And then realisation hit him like a truck at 1am. The next day he sauntered up to Minghao’s table with butterflies in his feet.

 

“I was watching ‘The Secret Life of Four Year Olds’ and I realised many things. One, four year olds are whack and are way cleverer than a lot of us also that show needs to be on the reading list for all courses. Two, Thomas is such an overused name, I’m glad my parents were from Korea and decided to call me Mingyu. Three, I’m kind of, maybe hopelessly in love you and won’t own up to my feelings and I think you’re the same, so we should absolutely go out for a movie or something this weekend.”

  
At first, everything went exactly how Mingyu pictured it would go: Minghao’s sandwich dropping to the table, his eyes widening in shock, the hustle and bustle of the cafeteria dwindling down and all eyes on them, everyone’s breaths all hinging on Minghao’s next move. Textbook movie shot. Mingyu expected at least half of hell to be raised and was all kinds of prepared to adopt the insistent puppy dog role until Minghao acknowledged him. Instead, Minghao’s face turned a bright red, the tips of his pale ears dusted in the pinks one would find in sunsets. There was a kind of brightness in his eyes, and if Mingyu remembered correctly, a sense of quiet relief. Minghao was about to open his mouth to say something when he realised how unusually quiet the cafeteria was and turned his gaze at the mass of college students eagerly watching their next gossip fodder, after which his signature glare returned and he proceeded to exit the cafeteria, chick flick style.

  
Mingyu later received a handwritten note during Design and Engineering and almost squealed in delight; instead, he knocks his knee and elbows against the table with a head-turning _thump_. He received a second note: ‘Don’t make our first date be me visiting you in hospital’ and blanked out completely from how fucking adorable and old-fashioned Minghao is.

 

 

 

  
  
"What are you thinking about?”

  
The wind has picked up and the sheets outside are rustling in its wake. Minghao has a small smile on his lips, the fashion magazine he's leafing through carefully perched on his knee, strands of his hair dancing with the breeze. Mingyu feels like they’re not on earth, but in a cloud somewhere up in the sky.

  
“How everything about this makes me feel like we’re floating on a cloud.”

  
Minghao rolls his eyes at that, but Mingyu doesn’t miss the layer of sunset slowly making its way to Minghao’s cheeks. The futile attempts to hide it only speeds up its conquer, and Mingyu’s pulse. 

  
“It is pretty chilly in here.” Minghao says after he manages to compose himself. He turns his gaze back to Mingyu, “Is that all you were thinking about?"  


It’s obviously not, but Minghao makes him stumble his words and lose track of where he’s going. It isn’t because of some cliché notion like being blinded by his beauty (which, if Mingyu thinks about it, does make him feel a little breathless), or feeling a flutter in his stomach when he hears Minghao’s raspy laugh. Maybe it’s all those things, but it's also so much more. It’s Minghao’s whole existence. Mingyu is the type of person to take his cues from everyone else— not that it makes him into a doormat, he should think, but he would be lying if he is to say it hasn’t thrown him under the bus for the sake of harmony. Minghao, on the other hand, is unrelenting. Independent, he steers his ship the way he believes it should sail, even if everyone warns him not to push through the storm. The type to hold his ground, and expect everyone else to do so, without apology.

 

To Mingyu, that’s scary. 

 

It’s a part of himself that Mingyu’s only caught on to recently, after Minghao pulled him away from a massive drinking binge he had been persuaded into, despite his raging headache and finals the next day. It unravels him, forces him to look at what he wants, his own hopes and dreams. Being with Minghao feels like breathing fresh air after having inhaled smoke all his life.

  
“I want to hold your hand.”

  
Minghao doesn’t say anything. His face reddens, but Mingyu is determined to hold his gaze, his heart pounding in his ears. 

  
Slowly, Minghao lifts one hand on the table between them, lifts another to his face. Mingyu bites the inside of his mouth and cradles his hand in his own, earnestly, their fingers automatically lacing. They’ve held hands multiple times but every single time they do, it sends Mingyu on a one-way ticket to Cloud Nine. Minghao’s hand is a little rough and doesn’t fit Mingyu’s perfectly, but his fingers envelope around Mingyu’s hand like he won’t ever let go.

  
“You could’ve just taken my hand without asking.” Minghao mumbles through his sleeve.

  
Mingyu lets out a throaty laugh. “It’s a warm-up,” he replies, rubbing small circles on the back of his warm hand. Minghao looks at him curiously with one eyebrow raised. He isn’t judging him, Mingyu knows that, but still it almost chickens him out from continuing. 

  
“I’m just, really thankful, you know? For you, and everything you’ve done for me." Minghao senses a shift in the air and leans across the table, eyes gleaming and lips slightly pursed. “And I just, I just feel I haven’t done anything to deserve that?”

  
“That’s not true—“

  
“Wait, let me continue.” Minghao clams up, nodding quickly. Even Mingyu is surprised at his own resolve. “I feel I haven’t done anything for, for you, you know, so I was thinking, before, before I fly tomorrow evening, can I, can I make you? Something? Anything you want to eat?"

  
Minghao stares at him in disbelief, before deflating on his chair, like he was holding his breath the entire time.“God Mingyu, what the hell was that serious tone for? I thought you were gonna ask me to marry you or something”

Minghao lifts his head, the realisation of what he’s blurted out dawning on his face. “Not that that’s a bad thing, or anything!" 

  
Mingyu’s heart almost leaps. “Can I do that? Marry you?” He’s never seen Minghao so flustered and worried before, and he grips Minghao’s hand tightly in both his hands, hardly able to contain the excitement in his voice. "Will you really walk down the aisle with me, say our vows and get smashed together at the reception and for the rest of our lives?"

  
        (There it is, the hanging question. The question behind the rustling of sheets. The question he didn’t even know he wanted answered, mistaking it for something silly and trivial. Again, it’s Minghao who brings it out of him, in a kind of trance only he could pull of.)

  
Minghao throws the magazine on his lap to Mingyu’s face, but it doesn’t deter the permanent grin plastered between the scrunches of his two cheeks. He gets up the same way he did when Mingyu first confessed to him and disappears to his bedroom. The air is hard to breathe until Minghao reappears and slams something on the table.

  
“I was gonna ask you tonight, actually, as a sort of, graduation present.” He fumbles with the velvet box, opening it to reveal silver band. “I can’t believe you made me spoil the surprise like that, but since we’re here anyway.”

  
Mingyu can’t believe it either. Everything feels like it’s been filtered through a fast-forward button, high impact gales thrashing, turbulence brewing in the middle of an unexpected storm. It makes Mingyu dizzy in excitement, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest, his stifled breaths barely keeping him alive. But it’s all right. Everything is all right, so long as he has Minghao with him, whether that's by his side or through a receiver two continents away. There is no question needed.

 

“Don’t just stare at me like that! You think you’re the only one who gets nervous here?"

 

The answer is obviously a loud, neck-breaking, soft-kissing, yes.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  


**Author's Note:**

> it seems i can only write short birthday fics hAH. rest in pieces my longfic dreams.


End file.
